ABSTRACT
Historical anthropology is not the mere sum of two different disciplines, with their own methods, but a declaration of principles that draw the researcher’s spotlight to human societies. It is not a matter of ‘being’, but of ‘doing’. After postmodern deconstruction, the social and human sciences found themselves surrounded by doubt, with many possible paths to take. To address this issue, we advocate an eclecticism based on the power of the classics, renewed and rethought to better understand our work with regard to social action and power relations. Other propositions discussed in the book offer thought-provoking ideas about going to the archives with new approaches and questions. This, however, requires some sharp epistemological tools to make use of the very sources of domination to draw out the experience and perspective of those excluded from power structures. Anthropological alertness to ethnocentrism is brought to the archive to counteract any possible chronocentrism. These words apply to the interaction between present and past. The false dichotomy between tradition and modernity, projected onto different, distant countries, continues to pervade many analyses of modern reality. As an end point, this book concludes with a final reflection of multiculturalism, its risks and excesses.
